


Nearly Witches

by riverofyou



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post-Split, Revenge, Songwriting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 22:59:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15181235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverofyou/pseuds/riverofyou
Summary: Brendon messes with Ryan's old song, twisting it and making it into something that Ryan would absolutely loathe.





	Nearly Witches

Sometimes, Brendon fucking wishes Ryan would come back to the band. He idolizes the beauty and talent of his ex, so poetic and smart.

Other times, he wants to punch that fucking douchebag in the gut.

Today is a punching sort of day. Brendon has already written and subsequently scrapped a bunch of angry songs, ones that will never see the light of day. They aren't pretty or subtle, and the fans will see right through him.

It's days like these where Brendon feels fucking see-through, like everyone knows him. Like he's just silly, pathetic.

Just like Ryan told him he was.

Sighing, he opens their old computer. It stores all of their old demos, song ideas, and future tour plans. If there's something that'll help him write a proper breakup song, one last fuck you to Ryan, it'll be here.

He searches through the shitty audio files, the half-finished paragraphs about moons and suns and days and nights and star-crossed lovers, naive fantasies and painful realities, when he sees it.

Nearlywitches.mp3.

Blinking, he clicks on the file, which buffers slowly. Biting his lip, he stands, hands shaking as he walks out into the kitchen. He could do with some coffee right about now. But of course, the kitchen only brings back more unpleasant memories. Peppermint tea, Ryan's drink of choice, is stocked in the cabinets. Just another little flashback, another painful reminder of how whipped Brendon was. Ryan hardly ever came over, hardly ever had time for Brendon, and yet Brendon stocked the kitchen with his favorites, making sure he was comfortable for him.

Swallowing, he tosses the box in the garbage, perhaps with more force than necessary, before brewing a pot of coffee, making it strong and dark. The fact that he pours whiskey in it is unimportant.

He never used to day-drink, didn't start until Ryan left, but just like he sings in that stupid fucking song, things have changed, and that's okay.

Right?

Right. Right. Things have changed, and he's okay. Spencer is okay. Jon, he hopes that Jon is okay. Ryan is another story. He knows that Ryan is struggling, and secretly, he's gloating.

Does that make him a bad person? Maybe so. He can't explain it, but part of him, the part that's still licking his wounds, that part that isn't over Ryan, likes the fact that Ryan is doing badly. It wants him to suffer, wants Ryan to hurt just as badly as he is.

Brendon takes a sip of his coffee, which burns the roof of his mouth. He grimaces slightly, but walks back into the studio, checking on the file. The program that they used to record the song is open, screen flashing cheerfully, and slowly, Brendon presses play, his fingers shaking.

Here I am, composing a burlesque,  
out of where they rest their necks.  
Sunken in their splintered cradles and,  
ramshackle heads. They asked for it.  
As a boy, I eat my wishes on golden toothpicks  
and I just sip them with wolf intestines!

Brendon pauses the song, disgusted. He hardly remembers singing the words, hardly remembers Ryan presenting them. They were created in a haze of drugs, the words essentially vomited out of all of their mouths as they talked about their fucked-up families, about The Salem Witch Trials, and a bunch of other gory stories and legends. The sound is haunting and the instrumentals are rusty, but... it's a song. Probably not one he can use, however. But there's still more of the clip, so reluctantly, he plays it.

I fell from the heavens  
as a fetish blessed with an operatic skeleton!  
And as the stars watch me descend  
I crack the family tree, and  
chopped off all of the branches.

Brendon swallows, sitting down and staring at the screen. This song meant something to Ryan. Sure, it was covered up by gory lyrics about Witches and confusing metaphor, but it was really about Ryan becoming something different from the rest of his family, breaking the cycle. It was a big fuck you, filled with emotion and anger and... and hate.

Slowly, Brendon begins to smile. If there's one thing Ryan hates, it's people twisting his words, making them into the opposite of what they really mean.

And what's the opposite of hate?

Love.

::

Brendon locks them all out of his studio. He doesn't want help writing, thank you very much. He'd rather make the lyrics on his own terms, at least for this one. He's retelling not just his point of view of their love story, but Ryan's, too.

He calls his phone company and gets printed copies of the texts that were sent during the breakup, scoffing at Ryan's attempts to get him back, the texts that say things like you'll haunt me forever, Bren and I regret letting you go!

Brendon regrets a lot of things, but he doesn't regret Ryan leaving.

No, he regrets the fact that he's so attached that he'll never truly escape Ryan Ross.

He writes about sneaking through Ryan's house while Keltie slept. A famous rock star, a guy who could have almost any girl, and he was playing the mistress to Ryan Ross. It was unfair. He was under Ryan's spell, completely in love. Only when Keltie left was he good enough. And by then, the damage had been done.

He finds notebooks that Ryan left behind, filled with heartbroken poems, and he adds them to the song. Some are about Keltie, some about Jac, some about Liz, who he wrote Lying about. Some, he can't tell who they're directed towards. Maybe Ryan wrote them about him.

The thought makes him smile.

In the end, he has a song. It's dreamy and longing, and it's subtle enough that no one will be able to PROVE it, but when he hears it, Ryan'll know that it's about him.

And he won't be able to do anything about it.

::

When Spencer sees it, he arches an eyebrow, giving Brendon a confused and angry look, but Brendon just smiles.

No one can prove anything.

::

Ever since we met, I only shoot up with your perfume.  
It's the only thing, that makes me feel as good as you do.  
Ever since we met, I've got just one regret to live through:  
and that one regret is you.


End file.
